Jun Qiu Xia
The girl had no name when she was born. The Huli-Jing need no names except among humans, and the girl was no different. Not even a girl -- a pup. A kit. Her father was pure white of coat (just like the little kit herself), her mother red, and each was very much in love with the other. Another watched with vengeful eyes, however, jealous of the union. Within a few days she slaughtered the male fox she had loved and stole the kit away, taking her to the human world -- a place of danger and uncertainty, a place of mortality. The red fox, the kit's mother, was evenly matched with the silver who had taken her child, and gave chase, but didn't catch up in time. The trail, so well followed by ones with sharp noses and eyes like the huli-jing, was jumbled and lost when the mortal world was reached, and from there the pursuit slowed to a crawl. The mother, bereft, did not give up. But the child was far beyond her reach, and the jealous spirit, mad with her anger and impurity and cast out of the Heavens for her treachery, took the child to a human hovel with a cruel snicker. She left the child, still halfway between a fox and a girl, in the bed of an old married couple, and disappeared. Human eyes are easily fooled, and white foxes -- making their home as much in cold snows as well as greens -- change their fur with the seasons as humans change their clothes with the day. The girl was dark grey, and to the couple she appeared dark enough to be considered a black fox: one that symbolized good fortune in the materialistic human world. They kept the child and raised her, with difficulty, and with little love. They kept her hidden from their village, and she was a wild thing, always wanting to go outside, walking and doing all those things that kits learn so quickly but babies learn so slowly. Her fur was lost, and hair grew from her head, black like a true easterner's, though her eyes remained their weird gold color. Within a year, however, they saw what they had first foolishly missed: her body, still caught between being a fox and being a human, changed her hair color from black to white. White was not the color of good fortune, and the couple realized the mistake: with no misgivings, they left the child on the side of the road to either die or be picked up by any passersby. She was picked up by a band of travelling merchants, being pitied and them not knowing the truth of her origins. Her yellow eyes and white hair mattered very little to them, for any child that could run and climb and jump as well as she alreay could would be able to work just as well. When one is on the road, any help is good help. They found that the child was either dumb or poorly taught, for she never spoke, though she could follow basic instructions. But before three months was up, they found that their food stores could not keep up with her, for she had a bizarrely voracious appetite, especially for meats, which were expensive. This, and her hair was turning black once more, which was surely an ill omen: the expense and the superstition being too much, they left her in one of their routine towns, and this time she was not picked up. She stayed there for a year, smarter than other children for all it was worth, but still not speaking and still not knowing any of the things that little kits nor little children should know. Simple things like trust, manners, caution -- all these were lost on her, and she ended up living on the street, surviving, but improperly, running under eaves for scraps when the customer has left. When she was only two -- or perhaps three -- she was still as tiny as a two-year old, but developed like a ten-year old, as odd as it would be to picture. For this reason she was mistaken often for a dwarf, and was frequently shoved and shooed and kicked at -- sometimes even stepped on. Life in the city is hard for children, but even more so for the small and weak. When spring came again, and her hair had not changed back to white during the winter, slave-traders made a random stop in the town, looking for fresh meat just like her: orphans, weak without guardians, who could be easily bent into shape. The little waif knew nothing about caution or trust, but already she had sharp instincts (and those of a fox are especially sharp), and put up a fuss when they touched her and tried to lead her into their caravan: but the part of her that was slowly becoming human was easily broken and hurt, and when physical restrain and beatings were her only rewards for her struggle, she quieted and became timid and fearful. It was the first time she cried. For two years she travelled with them, and they broke her well, though she still remained wild at heart -- a regrettable feature that they tried to quell. She was becoming more trouble than their efforts were worth, for while she stayed timid and scared, she still fought. But the girl was not strong. There were no buyers. No one wanted a thing as tiny and frail as her -- tiny and frail even for an eastern girl-child -- for the tiny and frail do not make good workers. And her eyes made people uneasy, so that they wrinkled their noses in distaste and took a step back in reproach, and she remembered many disapproving, disgusted faces, and many rejections. Perhaps in her favor, or perhaps more for the pity, she didn't know the difference between rejection from the wealthy and fortunate, and the imprisoning ways of the cruel-hearted slave traders. A child who is not taught does not know what is right and what is wrong, and what goes unnamed remains hard to correct. But there was still that instinct that did not like the traders. One fortunate day, an old man came to call on them. For whatever reason, Jun Norhisa -- a skilled wushu master -- felt a calling to go to the slave market, though he normally avoided such things like the plague, not being wealthy enough to buy all the faces he felt so sorry for. Today, he came to see them, and the first face he set his gaze on was a face he very nearly fell in love with. The little girl's eyes were sharp and watched him closely, and their gazes locked. Wherever he moved, she watched him without moving her head -- a very curious, and rather unsettling behaviour for a child who looked no older than four. Her face had none of the plumpness of an average child (not suprising considering the diet of slaves), but was somehow elegant and at the same time endearingly sweet. Almost like a kitten, he thought. But she did not smile, and she said not a word, and fussed when he touched her. But the sight of her charmed him to his heart, and he knew then why he had been called to the slave market: to buy this precious little monster, no matter the cost. He payed the full price, rather low, and took her home. She would not hold his hand, and seemed to dislike touching skin-to-skin. He asked her if she spoke, but she did not respond, only stared. He shook his sleeve out over his hand, and asked her if she could pinch it. After a moment's consideration, but curiously not hesitation, she obliged, taking his sleeve in her tiny, slender fingers. This gave Jun Norhisa great joy, and finally, the girl had a name: Jun Qiu Xia. Little Autumn Cloud. That day, a red fox followed them. At long last the mother had found her child. But she did not make her presence known, realizing the potential conseqences, and simply watched her child grow from afar. Qiu never grew much bigger, stopping just at five feet tall, and remained slender, though her human chi struggled to give her a human girl's shape. Because of her slightness of figure and her bizarre golden eyes, she was often teased and bullied by other children, and her instincts once again kicked in to try and protect her. Pain was a threat to her and frightened her, for pain had been the way of the slave traders, and those were days she remembered unhappily, miserably. Jun Norhisa taught her wushu to the best of his ability, and though at first it was awkward to her and she continued to be picked on, she became a master herself by the time she was fifteen. She did not learn how to speak until she was seven, and even then was quiet and morose, so Norhisa -- whom Qiu now affectionately called Sifu -- set up a schedule for her, with training during specific times and at night, every second day, she was to read to him from a book, or a paper, or anything. From these she gained her education, and not only became very quick and strong, but very intelligent. Her intelligence spanned not only the books, but the outside world. She was very clever, witty, and sometimes downright sneaky, but Norhisa loved her as if she was his own daughter. She had grown little in stature, but enormously in confidence, and was strong-willed and wild and sure of herself. It wasn't long before she herself snuck up on the red fox and suprised her. At the end of that day, she came home with the animal bundled up in her arms, asking her dear Sifu if she could keep it. He said yes, by the way. Qiu had few friends, but those that she had saw past her anomalies and odd behaviour and held her closely, but no matter how many years passed, she still had trouble touching people she did not trust. In fact, Norhisa was the only person she found she could touch outside of combat without shuddering, try though she might. It wasn't a part of her heritage, but part of her past: making contact with people was too painful, too uncomfortable. Those who were close made one vulnerable. At the sime time most children go through growing pains, Qiu suffered through her own. Her lower back and her head were often the subject of sharp pains and aches enough to cripple her for days. Each of her teeth fell out three times over the course of one season, leaving her mouth a bloody mess, and her feet and fingers grew twisted and arthritic in turns. It was three years before these stopped, and though she trained just as hard as ever throughout the agony, she did so behind closed doors: at one point she had grown a tail, then an extra set of ears, all of which peeled off in a matter of months like the skin of a snake, only bleeding and hurtful. Determined to make the madness stop, and knowing the truth the girl did not, Norhisa taught her hard in those days of the ways of chi. Once she had learned to work with it and balance it, the trouble grew less and less. To this day she still suffers these pains, but is better equipped to deal with them in her knowledge of the river of energy flowing through her and all other living things. Norhisa made it known to her that he had a present for her, around the time she had turned thirteen: it was a strange golden amulet, engraved with the mingling signs of the sun and the moon, and not much bigger than a coin. When she was ready, he said, she could have it, but even if he played the keeper, in rightfully belonged to her and no one else. The sight of it always calmed her nerves, and though she wondered how exactly she needed to be ready, she did not ask questions, trusting in the wisdom of her teacher. When she was twenty, tragedy struck. Qiu made her way into the school temple, a book in her hands, late for the night's reading, to find a strange, hairy, foreign man bent over Norhisa's still body. Though in denial, she knew at heart what was happening, and dropped the book to rush to her Sifu's side as the stranger stood. When he turned, she only caught the flash of a bronze mask, and the rest was all red. When the red mists had cleared, the stranger had disappeared and she was lying on the floor beside her teacher, eyes blurred from poison. Fear knotted her insides for the first time in many years, and when she finally managed to sit up, Norhisa was cold and stiff beside her. The amulet, which he had always kept on his person, was gone. A venemous rage burned inside her, as well as a bitter, horrible grief. Though her soul ached for revenge, the ache of loss was stronger and it was several days before she was able to set out on the road. She has made her way to the west, and will not rest until she has avenged her teacher's death and recovered what is rightfully hers.